May 23, 2010

The Lone Star State

We had a lot to get done & there just were not enough hours in the day.

On Monday we moved most of our belongings into storage (Thank you, thank you to everyone who helped).

The rest of the week included cleaning up & painting our apartment back to white [BORING!!! My colors were way better.]

I told my fabulous sister

last week that I was not one to ask for help, but that I would be needing it throughout the coming week & this will probably be the only time I ask.

She went above & beyond the call of duty & arranged a "Paint Party" at 8 p.m. on Wednesday night. Such busy little working bees.Tim helped take down my cute chandelier

& replaced it with one found at Saver's for $8.00 [Go Mom & Tim]!!!Be Jealous of how much fun we had.What every Paint Party needs to top off the evening...Dumpster Diving!!!

(We did not do this just because we thought it would be fun, we ended up needing something Jordan threw away (no need to mention I told him to throw it away, right?).Thankfully with all of our willing help we were able to get all of the painting done that night. On Thursday we finished packing up & did some more cleaning.

Our final mountain to climb before we could put on our cowboy hats was loading up the car. I had a lot I wanted to take with us & the challenge seemed impossible, but thanks to the skills I must have acquired from my father of packing as much into any given space, we did it! Behold!!! - a ghetto car getting even more ghetto...look closely.Saying goodbye was a little harder than I had anticipated. I mean just look at 1 of many cute little kids I am not going to see for3months.We [Jordan] drove 10 hours on Friday to Fort Stockton. We did not eat all day & were excited to get a nice dinner once we had reached the final destination of the day. But, did you know Texas is 2 hours ahead of Arizona?! It was 11 p.m. when we got there & everything was closed. We did find aSonic, thank the heavens there was a Sonic. Also thank the heavens, Mom & Dad prepared a large breakfast for us before we left that morning.

The next day we woke up early & drove the rest of the way to Austin (6 hours). Here is a picture I took when we were approaching our [temporary] new home. Downtown Austin is on the left where the skyscrapers are located.We are staying in an apartment that is payed for by DELL. It is nice & clean & I am really liking the layout. We were invited to dinner Sunday night by a friend of mine who actually only lives about 3 miles away from us. I am excited to have a friend close by, especially one that is willing to feed us (Thank you Jacquee & Danny). Today Jordan started the first day of his internship. I am excited to hear about his day. He sent me this picture to me via picture message.I am so proud of him & so excited for this summer. So far we are loving it here.

Missing our loved ones, but at least I have the cute boy in the picture above.

XOXO - Megan

P.S. The following is a real life experience of how they do things here in Austin:

You know when you are on the off ramp of the freeway & there are people begging for $?

In Arizona I've only ever seen $ given away.

In Austin yesterday, Jordan & I witnessed aLITERof beer being given to a man with a sign that read "25 cents." He was a lot happier to have gotten the beer, I think, than if he had gotten 25 cents. It was a little bit amusing and a lot a bit ghetto. We fit right in.

P.S.S. Surprisingly, pleasantly surprisingly, the car performed perfectly without any sort of mishap. I underestimated its capabilities.